


Patient Observations

by Fumm95



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Mentor Relationship, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 17:59:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18665509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fumm95/pseuds/Fumm95
Summary: Dr. Naveen Banerji has known Ethan Ramsey for a decade, but this relationship he has with the intern... This is new.





	Patient Observations

**Author's Note:**

> A bit delayed from the release of chapter 11 but Naveen Banerji ABSOLUTELY ships Ethan and MC and YOU CANNOT CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE.
> 
> I still have to write a post-diamond option fic from Ethan’s POV but I have so many fic ideas and no writing motivation so we’ll see if it actually happens LOL. THIS SLOWBURN IS KILLING ME.

Dr. Naveen Banerji, if asked, could say with absolute confidence that there was not anyone in the hospital, or even the world, who knew Ethan Ramsey as well as he did. It was not any particular arrogance on his part, but rather a simple statement of fact. Ethan was not a man who opened up easily to anyone and had such exacting standards that neither he nor those who knew him were wont to do so much as relax around each other, let alone trust each other. And there was the fact that a busy life devoted to patients and medicine did not mix well with personal affairs, perhaps helping explain his close connection to his protégé.

Which meant that Naveen was extraordinarily surprised to wake up in his hospital bed and find that the two of them were not alone.

Ethan, true to form, took his immediate teasing and attempts to lighten the mood in stride, with the same stoicism that always threatened to become his permanent state of being. The young resident, however, excused herself with alacrity, disappearing before he could even manage any attempt at a formal introduction.

Even so, she was not quick enough for him to miss the awkward glance she sent Ethan’s way, nor the minute nod she received in response.

His years of knowing Ethan  _did_  inform him that any attempts to ask questions beyond the most basic would result in him being even less forthcoming with information. He was, after all, most intent on being as utterly private as was humanly possible. Nonetheless, between the continued examinations and discussions, he still gleaned some details on the mysterious co-conspirator, and that which he did discover was curious indeed.

Her name alone was enough to ring a bell. It was rare for Ethan to involve himself in the match process, and those he advocated, as he had with her, had always proven themselves in the program. That she was a strong physician who had discovered his condition and had thus been sworn to secrecy was clear enough. But even so, that alone was not enough to explain her continued presence caring for a patient that was not hers during what he presumed was her downtime, or the way in which she and Ethan tiptoed around each other in a stiff dance of professionalism.

For that, far more telling was what he  _saw_  whenever she was in the room. The way Ethan looked at her when he thought that nobody was watching. The way he would occasionally slip and call her by her name rather than her title without either seeming to realize it. The way he could talk of something as unpragmatic as  _hope_ , for the first time, showing an optimism that Naveen was fairly certain he had never seen before.

It was no lie that he found his own fair share of enjoyment in hospital gossip, something that he knew Ethan would never understand, and that it was more so when he was confined to only two visitors within an unused ward for privacy’s sake. However, it was equally true that there was no possibility for his conclusions to be the imaginations of an overly bored man who surely had far better things to think about than the most sordid of scandals, as Ethan would no doubt try to convince him.

He was, after all, a skillful diagnostician and it was clear even in his short week of watching the two of them that something between Ethan and this Dr. Isabelle Wang was changing him for the better. Something that, as Ethan’s mentor and, in some ways, only family, he couldn’t help but hope would continue to grow.


End file.
